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Monday, 13 January 2014

So there have been three church-free Sundays since the end
of my year of churchgoing. On the first one I worked (deadlines and bad
planning having scrubbed out any possibility of “fun” over Christmas and the
New Year), and on the second and third I met up with a friend to visit the
Botanic Gardens and then the National Museum.

And no, I’m not missing going to church.

Trying to sum up what I’ve learned in the past year is taking
longer than I’d thought. No definite conclusions …
not yet, anyway. Except perhaps this one … that there will be no more churches.
I’ve been there and done that, and seen more varieties of this crazy thing
called Christianity than I bet a lot of people could claim to have experienced.
And there’s nothing there for me. If I want music, I’ll go to a concert or
listen to a CD. If I want a lesson, I’ll read it from a book. If I want the intemperate
opinions of social conservatives, I’ll read the Daily Mail. Actually, no, I don’t
think I could stomach that. And if I want to pray or read the bible, I don’t
need to sit in a strangely decorated building in order to do that.

All the Jesus stuff needs more mulling over. There are big
questions about exactly how much I can bring myself to believe, and as you
might have worked out by now the term arch-sceptic might just about begin to
describe my approach to most faith claims.